


Cause and Effect

by MarbleAide



Category: Batman (Comics), DC Comics, Red Robin (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 15:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10993845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarbleAide/pseuds/MarbleAide
Summary: Tim 'comes back to life' and he learns.





	Cause and Effect

**Author's Note:**

> I worked on this for a while because I really wanted it to be as close to perfect as possible. This is my interpretation of how I would want Tim to come back into the comics: angry and unforgiving.

Tim’s lungs burn. He’s not sure if it’s from the fight or the feel of breathing in real air for the first time in...he doesn't know. There was never a way to keep count of time beyond the growth of his hair. It is longer now, enough to be in his eyes, enough so when the wind picks up on the skyscrapers of Gotham it whips along with it.

He is trying hard to breathe. He is panting. His body aches, limbs heavy from gravity alone with bruises swelling under his too-hot uniform, with cuts slashed out making his skin sing with pain. Much of the fabric is stained dark with blood, his gloves are slick with it. His entire body is shaking. 

Before him stands Bruce. He’s the only one there right now, the only one to witness him as he is, after fighting, after rescuing all the others, after tearing his way back into their world, their dimension, stumbling back because he had to. _He had to--_

Bruce moves, quickly, and Tim’s breath is being squeezed out of him with a hug. Bruce is on him before he has time to fully react. At the top of his head he can feel Bruce’s nose pressing into his hair, the inhale of air sharp. His lips tremble and, on the next exhale, there’s a broken sound accompanying it.

Tim is standing there, alive, and Bruce is-- it’s not crying, but it’s close. Tim can feel it in the way the arms around him shake under layers of armor. How fingers dig into his back as if they’re afraid of letting go. There’s a coiling in his stomach, a hot bundle starting to burn inside his throat. Tim can feel tears prickling at the corner of his eyes.

“I never--”

He’s about to hug him back. He’s been away from his family for too long. He’s about to pull his arms up, bury his head in Bruce’s chest, let the stinging at his eyes take over, and then it hits him.

_Never._

Tim freezes. His cheeks are hot. Somewhere off in the distance, sirens scream out into the Gotham night. Tim’s ears ring with them, a loud humming buzz that rattles through his bones. His stomach drops.

“Never?”

He pulls back, forcing distance. It’s hard to do for a second, but he manages to wedge his arms between them, push Bruce away from him, to look at him; to face him, even if somewhere in his head there is a voice at whispers out _don’t._

“Never,” Tim repeats the word, looking at Bruce, wanting so bad to peel the cowl back. He wants to look him in the eyes when he says that, wants to see Bruce’s truth, and wants to believe it is a lie. But he knows. Deep down, when he says that word he can see the way Bruce’s jaw tenses up, how his teeth grind, and he knows. And suddenly, everything tastes like grit and sand.

“Did you not think I’d come back?” He asks. He has to ask. Tim has to know the answer to that question, has to even if he already does. Even if Bruce is standing there quiet for too long, with only the wind gusting around them, snapping capes back and forth. Tim’s ears are still ringing.

Bruce takes a step forward, reaching. “Tim--”

It’s enough of an admittance. Tim’s chest is growing tight as he moves away, smacking Bruce’s hand away before it can reach him. Blood is pounding too hard and too quick under his skin. Every bruise and cut on his person throbs with his quickening heartbeat.

He fought his way out; his way back. It had been months of him locked up in a cage plotting and planning and figure it all out, organizing, rescuing, but he did it, he had to do it, there wasn’t any choice in the matter, but he still thought he wouldn’t be alone in doing it-- he thought at least Bruce would have--

“You just left me?” Tim says, his voice near too soft to be heard. He hates it. It sounds broken. His words are quickly snatched up by the wind, dragged away far off the building they stood on. “You didn’t even look?”

Bruce reaches out again, but thinks better of it this time, and retreats before his hand gets too far. “You died. Tim, we watched you die.”

“ _I’m standing right **here** , Bruce!_” He shouts, he can’t help it. His eyes burn. His hands are shaking, curled into fists too tight and _shaking._

It’s all starting to unravel inside his head. He thought he’d come back-- he’d come back to everyone happy, but not surprised. Not with their eyes wide and wet and mouths half open in awe. He figured they’d have already known he was going to come back, eventually, because there was no body, he never died, he was there. They just had to look.

_They never even thought to._

Tim feels the bite of his own fingers into his palms, the blunt force stopped by his gauntlets, but still there. He wishes for his fingernails, he needs to focus on something more than the growing pool of ink in his stomach.

“How many people have you lost?” His voice still holding strong. The ink is starting to clog his throat, but he forces it back, makes sure every word he says is precise so Bruce knows exactly what he is saying; that there are no mistakes. “And how many of them have come back?”

Bruce’s shoulders are squared. He isn’t trying to close the space between them anymore. “Too many of them haven’t.”

“And you figured I was just going to be one of them?” Tim spits, he can’t help himself. He can’t bring himself to care, can't feel any remorse or guilt. He needs Bruce to realize, to understand why this betrayal hurts so much. “You buried an empty coffin. Even the bodies you’ve buried haven’t always stayed down. So why did you think I would?”

There’s silence for a second. Tim feels like Bruce isn’t meeting his eyes anymore, his head angled just a few degrees too far down. He’s avoiding and Tim hates it. He needs direct contact, he needs to make sure Bruce can see him now. Bruce finally speaks. “No one could have known…” His voice trails, uncertain, which stabs directly into Tim’s chest. His heart stutters, it feels like, shards of glass cutting up his insides.

“I didn’t need you to know!” His eyes burn. He doesn’t want to cry, but the sensation is growing harder to subdue. The world is crumbling around him. “I just needed you to believe that I could!”

Bruce’s gaze comes up, his eyes sharpen. “It wasn’t easy for any of us.” he says in defense of his own actions. Inactions.

“No,” Tim nearly laughs. There’s a cut on his bottom lip that pulls tight when his lips quirk, but doesn’t break open again. He brings one hand up to grind the heel of it into his eye, pushing back the tears, press until spots appear in his vision. He cannot cry. “It never is.”

He licks his lips, they tremble. “The difference is I’ve never given up on any of them. I’ve always held out that they could come back. That you could come back, but apparently _you_ can’t spare me the same.”

“Tim--”

“Did you even look?” Tim repeats the question from earlier, even if he already knows the answer. “Or was hanging my cape up enough of a memory for you?” He snaps now, refusing to let Bruce get a word in-- he doesn’t deserve to. There is no explanation that will make this better, nothing that Tim will forgive him for. “You carried Jason and Damian home in your arms. You swore vengeance…” He swallows down hard on the lump in his throat, emotion bubbling up and making every muscle in his body tight. He doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t want to know the truth, of how little he has actually mattered. “I did-- I did everything right! I was just like them! I fought this war and was stolen from you! So why wasn’t I worth it?”

Tim wants it to be raining. He wants the world to feel just as he does. It’s getting harder to stay on his feet now, but he does it still, refuses to let Bruce see him on his knees; to see him weak.

“You burn the world down for Jason, for Damian...so what about me? Am I just a footnote to you? I’m the one not worth bringing back?”

“You’re my son, Tim”

“And you didn’t even try!” He’s shouting. His voice is too loud in his own ears, the words fall from his throat pained and shaking. He feels as though there isn’t enough oxygen so high up that they both can share it. “I’m your son, but that didn’t mean anything to you.” When he clenches his jaw, his teeth grind together. Everything tastes like blood and bile, there is no spit left in his mouth to wash it all down.

The wind calms for a moment, enough that Tim manages to breathe. He lets his head fall forward for this time, staring at the gravel under his boots. It doesn’t stop the fire from consuming him, but it does make it easier to speak. “When you died,” he says, words softer. “I was alone. I had no one. And maybe it’s because I couldn’t...I couldn’t bare to lose another father; that I didn’t want to bury you with everyone else, but I knew you were still alive. I knew and I never gave up on you.” Tim looks up, plants a foot in front of him, solid and sure.

He had too many funerals under his belt, too many gravestones to visit. And maybe that was some turning point, maybe it was a cry for help gone ignored by everyone who bared witness to it, but Tim could never accept Bruce’s death. Going out in a helicopter crash, in some explosion, felt so...anticlimactic for Bruce. So little in comparison to everything else he’d ever done. And so he searched.

“It hasn’t been easy. I haven’t gone a day without thinking about you. ”

It was more than Bruce was worth.

“Bullshit,” Tim says, “Bull _SHIT!_ ” He spits and there’s red in it. His vision seems to do the same. “If you thought about me you would have looked! You wouldn’t have accepted everything so quickly, wouldn’t have moved on without me!” His words catch, his throat closes up for a second, too much anger, too much hurt, everything coming together like a tidal wave to drown him where he stands. “You chose to let me stay dead because it was the easiest thing for you to do. Jason, Damian, Dick-- they _meant_ something to you. But what’s another kid, right? Especially the one that’s so disposable.”

This gets a full body reaction, his words cutting in deep enough that they force Bruce’s form to jerk with them. Good. Tim wants them to hurt. He wants him to know.

Bruce curls a fist. “You have no right--”

Tim snarls. “I have every right!” And lunges.

Bruce takes up a quick defense, blocking, but Tim isn’t going for an attack. He has to dodge Bruce trying to grab him, hold him probably, talk him down from whatever ledge he’s standing on.

Except this time Tim’s well aware of where his footing is and he’s not going to fall.

After only a few seconds of struggle, Tim steps back once more to create distance between them, one of Bruce’s grappling guns now in his hands. He back steps until he’s at the edge of the roof, the wind now threatening to push him over. Bruce takes a half step forward as if to stop him. He doesn’t.

Tim cocks the gun, aiming out into the city.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Tim’s lungs burn. His body aches. He feels completely gutted and more alone than he had locked up in a dark cage for months on end, stolen out of time and space with no one, no one looking for him. He swallows the ink, the sand, the grit. He forces submission.

“I didn’t need you to save me,” He says, stares, feels every thread break. “I just needed you to love me as much as you did them.”

Bruce stands still, silent.

Tim shoots off the grapple before falling backwards, down, then lurching up with practiced ease and a strong grip.

Bruce doesn’t follow. Makes no effort to do so.

Tim knows this and closes his eyes tight, squeezing until the cloudy tears in them have vanished when he opens them again.

And he is gone.


End file.
